Bozell: The Media Built That for Obama

By Brent BozellAugust 8, 2012 11:30 am

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On Aug. 5, Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post announced he was playing with a "somewhat controversial idea" that Mitt Romney should be the favorite to win the presidential election. Debatable, maybe. But controversial? Well, yes. It violates the pro-Obama mandate of our national press corps.

The usual political measures look terrible for Obama, he noted. "The unemployment rate has been over 8 percent for 42 straight months, a streak unparalleled in American history." Obama must win despite the crippled economy -- the most important issue for the voters.

The numbers are political red alerts. The Post's polling in July showed 44 percent approved of how Obama was dealing with the economy, while 54 percent disapproved, and 41 strongly disapproved of the job he is doing on the economy, while only 21 percent strongly approved. Six in 10 said the economy was getting worse, not better, in a Gallup poll.

And now the unthinkable: His campaign is being outmuscled financially. Obama's team has spent more than $400 million already on his re-election effort, The New York Times estimates, and team Obama is deeply worried he will be outspent by Mitt Romney and GOP-favoring super PACs in the fall.

So where can Obama find optimism? Cillizza cited the "narrative." "From the debate over when Romney totally cut ties to Bain Capital, to the (ongoing) debate over whether he should release more of his tax returns, to the negative press surrounding Romney's trip to Britain, Israel and Poland last week, the narrative of the campaign over the past month has worked heavily in Obama's favor."

Curiously, Cillizza omits the fact that the dominant narrative writers of the campaign are the national media, our "news" purveyors, and they are working overtime on Obama's behalf. Reporters pin down the candidate, slap his face and steal his lunch money, and then they go on camera and say it's sad the candidate had another bad day with his narrative. When crowds in Berlin hailed Barack Obama in 2008, the media were thrilled. When Romney traveled to Europe and Israel in 2012, 86 percent of the network news stories were negative, dwelling on supposed gaffes, "diplomatic dust-ups" and foreign "missteps."

In nearly every interview, reporters are pressing Romney about his tax returns, rolling out the red carpet for anyone who will demand he release them immediately. Can you imagine reporters in 2008 asking Obama repeatedly for his college grades or about his cocaine use or Rev. Jeremiah Wright in interview after interview?

Obama granted five interviews to "60 Minutes" before that election and was never asked about his record in Illinois or any of his scandalous associations, from Rev. Wright to Bill Ayers to Tony Rezko (now in prison), who helped him buy his house. Instead, Steve Kroft asked in his first interview, "Do you think the country is ready for a black president?" Kroft was still curious in his fifth interview, as they sat down in apparently racism-wracked Nevada: "I know, for a fact, that there are a lot of people out there, there are a lot of people right here in Elko, who won't vote for you because you're black. I mean, there's not much you can do. But how do you deal with it?"

Ultimately, Barack Obama will never be outspent -- if you were to calculate the price of the promotional airtime provided by the pro-Obama media, and in this cycle, their relentless Romney-bashing. While the networks manufacture gaffes overseas with Romney, real Obama gaffes -- "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" -- are called Republican smears, quotes out of "context."

In an online analysis, ABC claimed Republicans were basically lying: "Republicans have seized on the line 'you didn't build that' to falsely claim that Obama was speaking directly to business owners about their businesses." On CBS, morning anchor Charlie Rose complained about Obama being taken out of context, and the network's political analyst John Dickerson agreed that Obama needed to be defended: "Exactly, and what the president was saying, is it takes a village, essentially."

When Obama said, "Look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own," he knew whereof he spoke. Everything he's gained in politics has been granted to him by an adoring news media. Look no further than Steve Kroft beginning his first Obama interview in 2007 by seriously comparing Obama with Abraham Lincoln.

It's no surprise that many voters have a serious feeling of buyer's remorse. But our shameless media have no remorse at all for foisting this man on the country and no capacity for embarrassment that they put him on Mount Rushmore without an accomplishment to his name. It's too bad America can't vote to send the media packing. But they can and should turn off the nightly narratives lamely called a "newscast."

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L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM

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14 Comments

Comment by inluminatuo August 8, 2012 @ 12:19 pm

It is driving Obama’s people crazy that the truth, which is free, is overcoming the $400 million of other people’s money spent already spent by Obama in campaign lies. Three months from now when people go to vote they won’t give a damn about Romney’s comments on the Olympics or even Romney’s ability to create wealth and ability to keep some for the children and wife who motivated him to go out and get it in the first place. All that will be going through people’s minds is that fact that they are worse off than they were 4 years ago and that the promise of Change with Hope was a lie.

Romney is outspending Zero, gasp, gasp, fret. Yep, it is true. Romney has to spend on air fare, Zero uses AF-1 for free. Romney has to pay for advertising, Zero gets free news coverage 12+ hours a day. Romney has to pay for research on items, Zero has tax paid lackeys and czars make up numbers and have federal agencies do the research. Romney has to pay for hotels and fuel, Zero gets tax paid housing in the finest hotels. Romney has to buy meals, Zero gets tax paid meals cooked by his private chef.

There you have it. Fact after fact that Romney is outspending Zero in this campaign.

OF COURSE THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN AND THEIR MEDIA SURROGATES ARE THROWING THE KITCHEN SINK AT ROMNEY. IT’S NOT LIKE THEY HAVE A SUCCESSFUL RECORD TO RUN ON. WHAT I FEEL WE NEED TO DO IS TO START GOING AFTER THE PRESSTITUTES WHO ARE CARRYING OBAMA’S WATER. SEND IN LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, MAKE ENTRIES IN THEIR BLOG COLUMN, GO ONTO THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE AND DEBUNK WHAT THEY WRITE. REFUSE TO TAKE THE BAIT ON THE DISTRACTIONS AND REMIND THEM AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY “IT’S THE ECONOMY AND WE’RE NOT STUPID!”

Most people don’t know that Obama was employed by ACORN to register voters. You know, the ACORN organization that wrote most of the fraudulent 57,000 plus voter registrations in Pennsylvania in 2008. As a matter-of-fact, there were over 30 ACORN workers in various states that were convicted of massive election voter fraud. Since then, ACORN has been banned by US Congress from receiving any MORE funding, and ACORN shut their doors. But that wasn’t the end of them per se. They morphed into many individual organizations and continue to exist today. Obama is correct: We didn’t build THAT election voter fraud, ACORN did. We, the Citizens of the US, must watch the activities of the morphed organizations as the 2012 Elections progress.

Anybody with a brain and a lick of common sense knows Romney is the favorite .. there is only ONE reason I am concerned about his chances .. and considering the LackOfJustice department continued stance against any kind of good election fraud laws, I fully believe this obamanation could happen in this country with this president:

“It is enough that the people know there was an election.
The people who cast the votes decide nothing.
The people who count the votes decide everything.”
– Joseph Stalin

That is actually one of my big fears, too. I do think Obama and his cronies will stop at nothing to win this election. If we know anything from “Chicago” politics, we know that they have no scruples at all when it comes to rigging elections. And, once again, the press will turn a blind eye and let it play out without any question or concern. I have never been so disappointed with any entity in our nation as I am with the press, they could have gone a long way toward keeping things honest and fair but they have totally sold out. They really have prostituted themselves out to this regime. In comparison, the proverbial used car salesmen are looking like knights in shining armor.

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Comment by tps12 August 8, 2012 @ 3:39 pm

I no longer watch the news their just cheerleaders for the ob admin. They never ask ob any hard questions and they never go after all his lies. Good journalist no longer exist.

That is why the number of readers and listeners to the MSM keeps decreasing.

What I can’t understand is the blatant lies being told by Reid and Pelosi on the floor of Congress, presumably so they can’t be sued for slander, as well others including Obama who are making silly fabrications that are so easily revealed as lies by anyone using the Internet that I can’t understand their continued use. They must think that Americans have turnips for brains, but I’ve never met anyone so dumb they can’t recognize a lie and as a youth I worked as a crop picker and common laborer, but none of those I worked with were as stupid as these ads presume them to be. An example of I consider an absurd ad is some fellow claiming that his wife who was employed by a steel company was murdered by Romney because Romney couldn’t save the company from bankruptcy, so she lost her company-paid insurance and later died of cancer. Are people in this country really stupid enough to believe an ad of that type or that Romney doesn’t have a highly competent accounting firm doing his tax returns?

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Comment by malcolmx August 8, 2012 @ 4:32 pm

what is amazing to me is all the damage this President has done to 300 million Americans that he can get more than 30% of the vote;; we are moving in the wrong direction;; [3] left turns are really only one right turn.

The 30% he is getting are the leeches eating off the government largess that you and I are paying for. I believe that this election will have one of the largest turnouts in history. Historically, about 50% of the eligible voters usually vote, but I believe that this year the turn out will be much larger if primaries are any indication. Let us hope so.

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Comment by swizard101 August 8, 2012 @ 6:34 pm

When Democrats defend Obama for the “you didn’t build that” as something taken out of context, let me fill in the context a little more than just “he was speaking of the roads and bridges”. The missing context is that the speech was not oriented toward “inspirational” and the context offered that he was trying to imply “it takes a village” only has meaning in another unstated context. That other unstated context is that the message was about justifying higher taxes, not about inspiring people to be grateful, unless of course being grateful translates into willingness to pay more tax. Yet the truth is, all citizens and businesses benefit from the roads and bridges they pay taxes to have built. The government is not the benefactor. The government is merely the instrument for the taxpayers to erect that infrastructure. Should we all then “tax ourselves even more” just to show gratitude to ourselves for having used the government as that instrument to erect that infrastructure? If so, where does that “gratitude loop” end, or is it an endless loop, thanking ourselves for thanking ourselves for …..

I don’t care how much money Romney has. He got it honestly. What difference is it going to make if he shows his tax returns. There are just going to show that he is successful. Besides they are posted on the internet.

Frankly, I would like to see a rich president who knows how to create wealth. America is bleeding money right now and, obviously, the current administration hasn’t got a clue. How about giving someone who actually knows how to turn a failure around and make it profitable a chance? It could not be any worse than what we have now. Who would you ask for money advice – a welfare recipient who has never earned a dollar of his or her own, or a wealthy person who obviously knows how to succeed? Seems pretty simple to me!